James D. Hogan

In Memoriam: Nana

On April 13, 2013

IN MEMORIAM

Nana and Julia Elizabeth in 2011.

The narrative of this wonderful life was like fabric for my grandmother.

It’s been too many days since I’ve come here to write, and my dear friends, I hope you’ll forgive me. Last week we lost our dear Nana, my paternal darling grandmother. I’ve written about her before, including last September, when it seemed that death was reaching out for her.

But this is–or was–Nana, after all, the woman whose strength and perseverance were never easily measured in days.

My family has asked me to write her obituary, and truth be told, I’m a little overwhelmed at the task, not because I’m no good with words or I worry mine won’t be good enough. Rather, Nana is (was, I must keep reminding myself) a figure whose personality far exceeded the diminutive frame she eased into in her older age. Though she was tender and warm as my grandmother, there was an undeniable fire within her.

The stories I can tell….

Sundays | For the birds. And titmice.

By James D. Hogan

On March 3, 2013

In writing

A Tufted Titmouse. Via allaboutbirds.org

Learning to love the least of these, my brethren.

One of my favorite things about our new house is that it has several big windows, which look out onto a wooded yard. Given how the house sits on a sloped lot, and the land falls away in the back, it can feel at times as if you’re on the side of a mountain. I love it.

We have a lovely window over the sink in the kitchen that looks toward the neighbor’s house, and right outside is a mature dogwood tree. It’s bare now, of course, but I cannot wait for spring to creep forward a little further, so I can watch it bloom.

My mother-in-law gave us a bird feeder for Christmas, and when we opened it up, I knew exactly that we ought to hang it outside the kitchen window from one of the dangling branches of the dogwood. So we did. I went to the store and bought ten pounds of seed. I filled it up and fashioned a hook from which to hang it. And then we waited.

It didn’t take long for a flock of birds to arrive. They were gorgeous. I’m no Audubon, so I cannot deliver a rundown in Latin, but there were blue birds and finches, cardinals and red-bellied woodpeckers, jays and warblers and whippoorwills.

And then there was the Tufted Titmouse.

Deep in the Heart

By James D. Hogan

On January 13, 2013

In diary

FAMILY

“If anyone asks, just say you’re from Texas, and if that’s not good enough, tell ’em to go to hell.” —Nana

It’s summer between seventh and eighth grade in middle school. I would turn 13 that August, and my grandparents on Dad’s side were taking my brother, Brian, and me to Texas. It was like a family vacation, only it was two weeks and change long, and my parents weren’t coming along. I guess you could call it one of my grandparents’ retirement trips. They took off for a couple of weeks because they could. We got to go with them.

We drove the entire way in a burgundy Oldsmobile, winding west, stopping now and then to rest along Interstate 10, Nana and Brian in the backseat, Paps and me in the front seat. I was the designated navigator, outfitted with cool shades, an atlas, and a sense of direction much better than my grandmother’s. Brian played pocket video games, and his most urgent request was that whatever motel we stayed in that night had a swimming pool. We laid up for the second night of our trip some place in Louisiana. We’d pulled off the highway early, probably four in the afternoon or so. Paps was taking the drive down slowly.

It was a classic side-of-the-road motor lodge, the kind where the pool and its concrete deck were off to the side, near the parking lot, with a teal iron fence around it. The wind was blowing the bayou air, and leaves and bugs littered the water’s chlorinated surface. We had about thirty minutes to splash around (although I only remember Brian jumping in) before the thunder started rumbling beyond the interstate. Soon the thunderheads rolled over for a drenching rain. We ate supper at a Shoney’s that night and fell asleep to the glow of a television broadcasting a baseball game, the room’s air conditioner blasting away under the window.